by Max Brand
“You have been thoughtful, Tizzo,” said the duke.
“My lord,” said Tizzo, “I am always thoughtful when I see that the host does not drink with his guests.”
“I was waiting for you to commence with your wine,” said the Borgia.
Tizzo looked at him narrowly and the duke covered a bit of confusion with an apparently happy laughter.
“Your father was as free with his wine as the rest,” pointed out the Borgia.
“He is a man who never thinks except when he has a sword in his hand,” answered Tizzo.
“A foolish time for thinking,” said the Borgia. “But now, Tizzo, I am going to tell you why you have been so sour and sad.”
“Tell me, then, my lord.”
“It is because when all the gifts went round the table, there was nothing given to Tizzo.”
But Tizzo smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “What gift do I need?” he asked. “I have an axe, a sword, and the loveliest woman in the world. My lord knew of these things and therefore he would not waste himself and his money trying to find new gifts for me. Besides, I am under contract to serve you.”
“No longer, Tizzo. I have set you free from the contract.”
“However that may be, I am happy enough about myself, but I am not happy about the others. I watched you lift your cup many times, but the wine never passed your lips.”
“Do you think so? Well, Tizzo, I’ll drink alone with you, now,” said the duke.
“Will Bonfadini be the wine-bearer?” asked Tizzo.
“Ah, Tizzo, do you still suspect me? Will you always suspect me?”
“If these men who are in your hands should die tonight, the whole of the Romagna would be in your hands,” said Tizzo.
“Of course it would. A thing I have thought about,” said the duke. “But if I did such a thing, all honest men would shrink from me, and the first one to shrink would be Tizzo.”
“My lord, if there were such a murder, I would not shrink from you,” said Tizzo.
“You would come hunting for me with your sword, I think,” said the duke, curiously.
Tizzo smiled and said no more. “Am I free to leave you, my lord?” he asked.
“Free,” said the duke. “Unless you wish to stay and hear how I intend to reward you not with brocade or pearls but with real honor and power.”
“I shall leave that till tomorrow,” said Tizzo. “My lord is too weary with all his hospitality.”
And that was the way he left the Borgia and retreated from the hall.
Afterwards, the remaining three looked silently at one another for a moment.
“Did you hear?” asked the Borgia, at last.
“He suspects everything,” said Bonfadini.
“If I spare him, can I possibly win him back after he knows that I have betrayed the others?”
“My lord,” said Machiavelli, “in Tizzo, honesty is an incurable disease.”
“It is true,” said the duke. “Therefore — Bonfadini, make account of him first of all. I leave him in your perfect hands.”
“My lord,” said the white-faced poisoner, “this is the greatest honor and pleasure you ever have done me. I have hated him with all my heart!”
VII. A CAT IN A TREE.
BETWEEN THE SOUTHWARD branch of the River Misa and the southern gate of Sinigaglia lay the Borgo, where the poorest houses stood. And not a shack in the entire quarter equalled in wretchedness the little shed where the Jew, Sinigaglia by name, kept his stock of clothes old and new. His new clothes cost less than old clothes would cost inside the gate. He had taken the name of the town that sheltered him because his own name would not have been easily enunciated by Italian lips.
He was a long, lean, cadaver of a man with a tuft of beard that jutted straightforward. Always, by night and day, he seemed to be standing against a high wind, his eyes forever squinted almost shut and water winking out of them. He was a dirty old man whose hands were never softened by water, his mouth never cleansed by wine. And he stood now, towards the close of the day, at the rack where his second-hand clothes are hung, probing among them, making his selling talk according to one of his many lines of chatter; except that now he was making such a sale as he never had made before.
He would have sold that entire stock of clothing for a ducat and rubbed his hands over the bargain. But now he was asking in his whining voice a ducat for a single outfit.
The reason was that a girl was making the purchase. All the wrappings of her big cloak would not have been able to disguise her femininity in spite of the erect fearlessness of her carriage.
The Jew had looked through her at the first glance.
He said: “Here is a doublet better than new, because it was noble wine that stained it. Here is a pair of hose that will go with it. Do you see how one leg is yellow and the other plum-colored? You would look like a brave young sprig in that outfit. You can see the shoes, yonder. I throw them in without a price, because I am sorry when a girl wants to go dressed like a man. There’s no honesty in that. But be of bright cheer. The night will cover you. Shame has no eyes in the dark. But look — this will fit you perfectly. Will you try it?”
Lady Beatrice took the garment with a careless hand.
“Here is your money beforehand,” she said. “A ducat for the clothes and another ducat if you will stand at the entrance to your shop and keep everyone out.”
He took the money, carried it to the dull glimmer of the lamp, bit the good silver, and suddenly pouched it with a shudder of avaricious joy. Then he went to the door, muttering, and stood there as wan and meager as a scarecrow.
The girl tossed aside her clothes hastily. The chill of the evening washed her bare flesh. She pulled on the second-hand clothes with an indescribable loathing. Her cloak she swung over her shoulders again and pulled on the pair of chipped and battered gloves. At her belt there was a small dagger.
This was her one security against prying danger.
When she came to the door of the shed, the old Jew was muttering: “Two ducats, two ducats, two ducats! Oh, God, how much wealth comes to unworthy hands, and how little into mine who would cherish it!”
Then he added to the girl: “Think again, my child. The soldiers of the Borgia are inside the gate of the city. They have eyes sharper than gimlets. They have hands as cruel as the teeth of wolves. Even if your lover wears velvet, do not go into the city tonight. I once had a daughter.”
“Have you heard whispers of murder from Sinigaglia?” she asked.
“A thousand whispers; and I have seen some of the dead,” said the Jew.
“Ah, my God!” breathed the girl. “Have you seen dead men? Today?”
“Not today. Night is a better time for murder,” he answered. “Why do you ask about today? Is it some young page who waits on one of the generals? Murder will not come the way of the very young, except by accident or by jealousy. Has he made his master jealous? Yes, if the general should see your pretty face. If you wish to do good to your lover, let no other man see him in your company.”
“Farewell!” said the girl, and went hastily on towards the gate of the city, where the big lanterns already were lighted.
SHE went into a wine-shop where soldiers were drinking, and bought a round for them all. They looked at her with bleared eyes.
“Your father will beat you when you get home,” said one of them. “How do you come by so much money, lad?”
“My father is dead and I sold his house yesterday,” said the girl. “That is why I have a little money left in my purse tonight.”
“What will you do when the last of the money is gone?” asked a burly fellow in the gaudy uniform of the Borgia’s Romagnol companies.
“I’ll become a soldier,” she said.
“Will you? Let me see your hand!”
She pulled out her dagger and showed him her hand gripping it. At this, all the wine-drinkers began to laugh.
“A hand for a bodkin, not for a sword,” said a halberdier.
“Whose soldier are you?” asked the girl.
“I serve the famous Oliverotto,” said the halberdier.
“Ah, he is a great name,” said the girl.
“Yes, and a great brain, too,” answered the halberdier.
“And you?” she asked of a pikeman.
“Vitellozzo is my captain.”
“That is a famous man, too. Who is your leader?” she repeated to the Romagnol peasant.
“Tizzo,” he answered, and grinned, sitting up straighter.
“Tizzo?” she echoed. “Tizzo? Who is it that they call Tizzo? I never heard of him?”
“Open your ears, you young fool,” said the peasant, “and you will hear plenty about him! He is the man who won Forli and Urbino for the great duke!”
“I never heard of him,” she replied. “I suppose he is one of the lesser officers?”
“Lesser?” shouted the Romagnol, angrily. “Lesser, do you say? Ask this man what would happen if Tizzo stood at sword’s length from Oliverotto or Vitellozzo, with weapons in their hands!”
The halberdier answered: “Well, a general is something more than a duellist of a jouster. Tizzo does very well with his axe and his sword. But I’m talking about generalship. I’d rather follow a brain than a swordsman.”
“What brain opened Forli and took the Rocca? What brain captured Urbino?” asked the peasant, growing hot with anger.
“Oh, I’m tired of hearing of that,” said the halberdier.
“I’m not tired of telling about it, though,” said the Romagnol.
Lady Beatrice asked, casually: “He may have had good fortune and a sharp sword. But he’s not one to be kept with the famous leaders like the Orsini and the rest, is he?”
“Is he not?” demanded the Romagnol. “Does he not sleep in the same palace that shelters the duke himself? It is the house of Messer Bernardino of Parma. The finest in the city, of course. And there in the left hand range of rooms sleeps Tizzo in the chamber next to that of his father. My captain himself was called to Tizzo this evening, and talked with him there. I myself led his white horse into the stable in the next court. Only the duke himself is better lodged than Tizzo, if it comes to that.”
AT the chief portal of the house of Messer Bernardino of Parma two lights burned and half a dozen soldiers stood on guard. Beatrice Baglione walked carelessly past them. She turned the corner, saw an unshuttered window and an empty street, and instantly was through the casement.
Inside there was the odor of a stable. The light came through the huge room only from a single lamp that hung from a beam near the farther door. The horses had not yet lain down. They were stamping, crunching their fodder, snorting out the dust of the hay.
Beatrice picked up a dung fork and walked calmly down the aisle between the stalls.
A voice bawled out at her: “Who goes there?”
“A dung fork,” said she. “Do you want it?”
“Go to the devil with it,” answered the groom.
She went outside the stable into the court and closed the door behind her. She could remember one figure in all that gloom — a form of dim silver in the fourth stall from the door. That was Falcone, a horse hardly less famous than Tizzo, his master, among the troops of the Borgian army. Perhaps the knowledge of his whereabouts would tell a tale later on in the night.
She stood now in a big court and looked up at the tiers of windows that framed the three sides of the open space.
The left wing contained the room in which Tizzo slept — with danger already creeping towards him from the Borgia; unless Lorenzo Ridi had lied. But dying men are not apt to lie. Tizzo, before the morning, would die unless the warning reached him.
How should she reach him?
Armed men patrolled the court. The torch light flickered pale over the big heads of the halberds as the men paraded. Their swords made a harsh shivering sound inside the scabbards.
A big tree offered her a ladder of a sort, as it grew at the end of the left wing of the building, the only hint of foliage in that mass of naked stone, She went quickly towards the tree and got behind the trunk of it as the soldiers turned their backs and went in the opposite direction along their beat.
They had to come back before she could venture to climb. Leaning close to the tree-trunk, she heard them humming to themselves.
One of them said: “Do we march on Ancona?”
The other answered: “Why should I care? Ancona has worse wine than this part of the world?”
“What fools the generals have been!” said the first sentry.
“Aye, fools!” said the other.
They turned at the end of their walk and proceeded back. They passed so close that she could have reached out and touched the shoulder of the nearest man. And when they were halfway down the court, she climbed the tree, managing to reach the first branch by a run and a jump.
The coarse bark bit into her hands. She smiled at that pain. Through the branches, she could see the soldiers turn and come towards her again. As they came under the tree one of them said: “Why should a tree rustle when there is no wind?”
“Because there’s a cat in it, you fool!” said the second.
And they both laughed and went on.
VIII. THE BURNING OF A CANDLE.
WHEN SHE GOT out as far as the branch would bear her weight and when it had already begun to crackle beneath her, she found that she could barely reach to the edge of the nearest casement with the tip of her toe and the ends of her fingers. She had to grit her teeth. When she looked down, the pavement of the court seemed harder than stone, and rough as teeth to receive her.
Then, with a shake of the head, she thought of Tizzo. How like a cat he would spring across this little gap. For her own part, she barely was able to summon enough resolution to make the attempt. She drew herself out. She felt her fingers slipping. She had a frantic impulse to fling herself back into the tree which she had just quitted; but the noise of that would certainly bring the soldiers — and the end of her attempt. So she held to her grip as grimly as she could and gradually drew herself forward until both feet were firmly planted in the casement.
The shutters were open. She stood looking down into a little room which was almost bare. There was only a small table in the center of it, and a bench on one side of the table. A pair of gloves lay on this table and a candle burned on it. The candle gleam was reflected from the boss of a shield that leaned in a corner of the room, with a long pike rising beside it.
She could see everything with perfect clearness. There was a cheese rind beside the gloves on the table, and a litter of crumbs of bread-crust. And on the floor there was a sleek, long tailed gray rat moving quickly here and there, no doubt picking up fallen crumbs.
Now it lifted its head. She could see the bright, long whiskers tremble back and forth as the horrible creature scented more food above its head.
But she could thank God for the rat. It was the sufficient warranty that there was no human being in the room, unless he were asleep in a corner bed.
She slipped down to the sill of the window and dropped to the floor beneath, turning her back and lowering herself with her hands, there was such a distance to the floor. Behind her she heard the light, tapping scurry of feet as the rat fled to its hole.
She had gained the floor when two powerful hands gripped her by the arms.
“So, my fine young thief!” said a man’s voice.
She wrenched herself desperately. She merely succeeded in twisting around, so that he held her in the grasp of one strong arm. The other hand held over her head a deadly little poniard. The wine-breath, sour with an admixture of cheese, stifled her.
And then she saw over his scarred face the coming of a broad smile.
“A wench!” he said, “Ah, ha! All good things come to those who wait! Wine and bread and cheese — and then a wench!”
He jammed the poniard back into the scabbard and slipped his hands down her arms until he held her by the wrists. After that,
he pushed her back to arm’s length and looked her over from head to foot.
The cloak obscured his full sight of her. He held both her wrists easily in the grip of a single hand. With the other, he cast the cloak away from her shoulders.
“And so I thought — so I thought!” he said. “Even better than my thinking, and better than my dreaming.”
He leaned and kissed her. She did not stir. She could feel the grease left by his lips on her skin. But she would show neither terror nor disgust. With a still face she regarded him.
“A brazen one for such a young one,” said the soldier. “What’s your name?”
“Giulia.”
“Whose daughter?”
“Tomaso, the chief fisherman.”
“He’s as important as that?” grinned the soldier.
Where the scar cut across his upper lip, the mustaches scattered as he smiled and showed a broad, white glint of scar-tissue. He had no forehead at all — only two wrinkles of flesh above the eyebrows and then a shag of hair.
“And whom have you come to see?” asked the soldier.
She answered — she had planned that answer— “Tizzo.”
“Ah hai! You aim at the high ones, eh?” said the soldier. “Tizzo, is it? Let me see. Does that sound reasonable? All the fine ladies throw their gloves to him. Why should he look down as far as a fisherman’s daughter? I’ll take you to the captain of the watch, perhaps — and he may have something to say, and certain ways of saying it. Or will you stay here comfortably with me?”
SHE said nothing. She kept watching that face, seeing it as she never had seen another thing in her life.
The moonlight streamed in across her shoulder and mixed with the dim yellow of the lamplight that illumined him. It seemed to her that the moonlight was like a stream of cold water, chilling her to the bone.
“Tizzo!” said the soldier. “And thinking about him has almost made you dumb, eh? Well, he’s a good captain. By God, he’s one of the best that rides a horse or swings an axe. I’ve see that axe of his chip a way through a forest of steel helmets. Tizzo, is it? And did you come for love or money?”